A Black woman who was wrongly arrested at gunpoint, handcuffed, searched, frisked and compelled to spend two weeks in jails in New Jersey and Pennsylvania couldn’t sue the six U.S. Marshals who detained her, a federal appeals court ruled last week.

Judith Maureen Henry, now 74, was arrested at her Newark home at 7 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2019, by U.S. Marshals Service and native law enforcement officers who had a warrant for the arrest of a woman of the same name who had skipped parole after being convicted of cocaine possession in Pennsylvania 26 years earlier.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2020, Henry protested her innocence and denied that she was the Judith Maureen Henry named in an arrest warrant that the Pennsylvania Parole Board sent to New Jersey authorities, providing identifying information including a photograph of Henry and her home address.

Henry was first taken to Essex County Correctional Facility in New Jersey and held for 10 days, then sent to 2 Pennsylvania prisons for one other 4 days. All the while, her grievance says, she tried to persuade marshals, sheriff’s deputies, corrections officers and jail officers to envision her photo, fingerprints and date of birth against the criminal records of their real parole goal.

Law enforcement and corrections officials refused to achieve this until September 3, once they discovered that Henry’s fingerprints didn’t match those of the fugitive. It was one other two days before she was finally released from the ladies’s prison in Muncy, Pennsylvania, with $20 for food and a bus ticket to Penn Station in Newark.

In the meantime, Henry claimed, she was not allowed to present her case to the judge, was searched naked and was denied medication to manage her blood pressure and claustrophobia. She claimed that in consequence, she experienced increased anxiety, headaches, physical pain and shortness of breath, and was traumatized and humiliated.

In her lawsuit, amended in 2021, Henry named 30 defendants, including Essex County, Pennsylvania Interstate Parole Services, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and dozens of law enforcement and corrections officials, including six deputy federal marshals.

The grievance accuses her of abuse of process, false arrest and imprisonment, intentional infliction of mental suffering, negligent training and supervision, and conspiracy, citing violations of state and federal law.

Last week, Judge Thomas Ambro, writing an opinion for a three-judge panel of the third U.S. Court of Appeals for the United States Circuit, dismissed the federal cops’ case, reversing the district court’s decision.

Ambro ruled that the marshals acted pursuant to a “constitutionally valid” order and that they were entitled to qualified immunity, a legal protection that shields law enforcement officers from liability, The New Jersey Monitor reports that.

“Therefore, Henry’s arrest based on the information attached to the warrant was excusable error and, accordingly, her arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment,” Ambro wrote.

The judge noted that Henry’s “complaints — that officers did not take her claims of innocence seriously — raise a number of questions about the role of the Marshals Service after a suspect is arrested on a warrant for a crime that was not investigated.”

Among them, he said: How strong must a post-arrest claim of innocence be before it needs to be investigated? Who should conduct the investigation—marshals or law enforcement officials? How thorough should the investigation be, and when should it happen?

“We acknowledge that … a reasonable observer might conclude that finding an answer is not difficult and that it would impose minimal burden on the marshals,” he said, concluding that Congress, not the judicial branch, must determine whether “the potential encroachment on the investigative function of the executive branch is worth it.”

In her charges of false arrest, false imprisonment, and conspiracy, Henry claimed that despite her protestations of innocence, the arresting officers and guards assumed she was guilty “solely because of her lower economic status” and that she was a “(B)eautiful woman from Jamaica.”

Ambro ruled that the marshals didn’t conspire to deprive her of equal protection under constitutional law, noting that the plaintiff “must show some racial or perhaps class-based, jealously discriminatory animus (that) lay behind the conspirators’ actions.” Despite Henry’s claims that her treatment was a results of her economic status and race, “we need not accept this bare conclusion,” Ambro wrote, “and she presents no other allegations to support it.”

Henry’s lawsuit still has two dozen defendants in its crosshairs, including individuals and institutions involved in her arrest and throughout her two-week detention. Her attorney, Tisha Adams, declined Atlanta Black Star’s request for comment on how she plans to proceed with the case.

The other defendants included Timothy Riegle, a parole technician with the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, whom Henry blamed for starting her legal nightmare by serving an arrest warrant on Essex County, New Jersey.

Henry claims Riegle conducted a search under the name Judith Maureen Henry after which chosen her Newark address as a goal for arresting officers, attaching a photograph of her driver’s license to the warrant.

Her grievance alleges that Pennsylvania Parole Board supervisors improperly trained Riegle, who failed to envision parolee Judith Henry’s fingerprints, conduct a fingerprint comparison, or request a fingerprint comparison from law enforcement. “Riegle failed to note physical characteristics, scars, identifying marks, and tattoos, the height difference between the fugitive and Ms. Henry, or their dates of birth,” her grievance states.

Henry further claims that this shouldn’t be the primary time she has been mistaken for the same fugitive.

Her grievance alleges Riegle did not contact a corrections officer, Don Young, “who had information that Ms. Henry had been previously arrested and misidentified as a parolee in 2000. The identifying marks on the wanted parolee’s body (were) obtained during the arrest in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania,” the same location because the parole supervisor named as a defendant in the present case.

“Without reviewing the physical descriptions, date of birth, FBI number, fingerprint card, and immigration number of the individual he initially sought to arrest, detain, and extradite… Defendant Riegle failed to contact Don Young, who had information about Ms. Henry and the individual he had initially sought since 2000,” the grievance reads.

Henry is looking for compensatory and punitive damages, in addition to legal fees and a jury trial.

In their response to her amended grievance in 2021, Essex County officials denied most of her allegations or said they didn’t have enough information to form an opinion as to the reality or falsity of her claims. They raised legal defenses to all of her claims, including qualified and absolute immunity, and argued that they “acted in good faith and with reasonable and probable cause based on the circumstances at the time” and “without malice” and were “free from any negligence.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President (*10*)Kamala Harris accepted the rules set for next week’s debate with the previous president Donald Trumpalthough the Democratic candidate says the choice to go away each candidates’ microphones on throughout the showdown will work against her.

The announcement, made Wednesday in a letter from Harris’ campaign to host ABC News, appears to mark an end to the microphone muting debate that has threatened to disrupt the presidential debate scheduled for September 10 on the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Harris’ adoption of the debate rules got here as Trump, profiting from an evening he had was proposed as a debate with Harris on Fox News Channel — as a substitute sat down for a solo sit-down with host Sean Hannity in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in preparation for a debate with a longtime ally who asked him about his plans to face the Democratic nominee.

President Joe Biden The campaign made muting microphones, except for the candidate whose turn it was to talk, a condition of its decision to just accept any debates this yr. Some aides said they now regretted that call, saying voters were shielded from hearing Trump’s outbursts in the course of the June debate. The Democratic incumbent’s disastrous performance contributed to his departure from the campaign.

When Harris replaced Biden as her party’s presidential candidate, her campaign advocated for live microphones throughout the debate, saying earlier that the practice would “fully enable substantive exchanges between the candidates.”

But Harris’ advisers said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday that the previous prosecutor “will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President.”

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“We suspect this is a primary reason his campaign is pushing for microphone muting,” her campaign representative added.

Despite these concerns, the Harris campaign wrote, “we understand that Donald Trump poses a risk if he skips the debate entirely, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not agree to his preferred format.” In order “not to jeopardize the debate,” the Harris campaign wrote, “we have accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.”

According to a Harris campaign official, a bunch of reporters shall be on hand to listen to what the muted candidate could be attempting to say when his microphone is off. That detail was not included in the total debate rules, also released Wednesday by ABC, that are essentially the identical as those for the June debate between Trump and Biden.

The network set the parameters of the essential format — 90 minutes with two industrial breaks — in line with specifications that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis “will be the only ones asking questions,” presumably in hopes of avoiding an open discussion between the candidates.

“Moderators will endeavor to enforce time limits and ensure that the discussion proceeds in a civilized manner,” the network noted.

A Harris campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to debate debate scheduling, said a candidate who repeatedly interrupts will receive a warning from the moderator, and each candidates’ microphones could also be turned on if there is critical disruption so the audience can understand what is occurring.

After Tuesday’s virtual coin toss, which Trump won, the GOP nominee opted to deliver a closing statement, while Harris selected a podium to the proper of viewers’ screens. There shall be no audience, written notes and no topics or questions shared prematurely with the campaigns or candidates, the network said.

During Wednesday’s meeting with residents, Hannity discussed most of the topics typical of the GOP nominee’s campaign events with Trump, placing particular emphasis on immigration, and took questions after showing video clips of Harris’ media interviews and other appearances.

Trump also shifted attention from Harris to Biden several times, calling the Democratic alternative of his leading candidate a “coup” and stating he would favor a debate with Harris over a town hall meeting.

Asked about next week’s debate, Trump repeated his previous criticism of ABC, calling it a “dishonest” and “unfair” network, while also repeating his previous claims that the Harris campaign “will be answering questions ahead of time.”

The location of Trump’s town hall meeting and next week’s debate in Philadelphia underscore the importance of the important thing area of ​​Pennsylvania, where 19 Electoral College votes shall be up for grabs in November’s election.

New study sheds light on the various perspectives of black voters and their approaches to numerous election issues.

reports that the Sojourn Strategies study identifies black voters as falling into a number of of 5 categories: civil rights voters, secular progressives, new-generation traditionalists, rightly cynical, and race-neutral conservatives.

According to Katrina Gamble, CEO of Sojourn Strategies, “These clusters indicate that there is “there are incredible differences in the black community in the way people think about democracy and their role in our democracy.”

The survey surveyed 2,034 registered voters and 918 unregistered voters, and their responses indicated that 41% were pro-civil rights voters, who tended to be over 50 years old and had high voter turnout. They were also a gaggle that believed their vote may lead to positive change.

By contrast, the group considered more cynical, making up 22% of respondents, were the youngest and least more likely to vote. Shaped by their experiences with racism and encounters with law enforcement, they felt their votes carried less weight in comparison with what older generations believed.

Next-Gen Traditionalists were probably the most religious and least educated group, made up mostly of millennial and Generation Z voters. They made up 18% of respondents and were a low-turnout group with moderate faith in the ability of voting.

Secular progressives are probably the most progressive group amongst black voters, although they’re relatively small at only 12%. This group can be the probably to vote, and consists mainly of educated women who’re extremely more likely to vote.

The final group, race-neutral conservatives, are likely to be male voters, who’re the second oldest and most conservative group. This group makes up 7% of respondents and has moderate voter turnout, tending to point to systemic barriers to private alternative voting.

According to Sojourn Strategies, several groups have engaged voters in campaigns tailored to extend their participation within the civic process. These groups include the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the New Georgia Project, Black Leaders Organizing Communities in Wisconsin, Michigan’s Detroit Action, Faith In Florida and POWER Interfaith in Pennsylvania.

According to Gamble’s editorial in , “When black people feel powerful, they vote. When they feel powerless, they don’t vote. Simply throwing millions of dollars into advertising, especially at the last minute, will not give black voters the power to make a difference with their votes. Instead, invest in black-led power-building organizations that are already deeply engaged in their local communities.”

Gamble continued: “Ultimately, candidates need to treat black voters like the sophisticated political operatives that they are. They need to understand the nuances and differences in black political thought and behavior. They’re going to have to woo and persuade them. And they need to start now, not after Labor Day.”